Air strikes hit Aleppo hos­pi­tals

Air raids have hit four makeshift hos­pi­tals in Syria’s bat­tered Aleppo city, doc­tors said Sun­day, jeop­ar­dis­ing med­i­cal care for more than 200,000 des­per­ate civil­ians in rebel-held ar­eas.

The bom­bard­ment since Satur­day has wors­ened the plight of res­i­dents of be­sieged eastern neigh­bour­hoods of Syria’s sec­ond city, where food and med­i­cal sup­plies are be­com­ing in­creas­ingly scarce.

The hos­pi­tals, as well as a blood bank that was hit, are in the Al-Shaar neigh­bour­hood, said the In­de­pen­dent Doc­tor’s As­so­ci­a­tion, a group that sup­ports clin­ics in Aleppo.

It said a two-day-old baby was killed in the chil­dren’s hos­pi­tal when his oxy­gen sup­ply was cut in a raid early on Sun­day.

It was the sec­ond strike on the same hos­pi­tal in about nine hours, the IDA said.

“Af­ter the sec­ond strike, we had to move him (the baby) down­stairs to the bomb shel­ter, and that’s why he died,” said Ma­lika, the hos­pi­tal’s head nurse.

Footage posted by the IDA of the strike’s af­ter­math showed ag­i­tated doc­tors car­ry­ing a tiny baby in a room lined with in­cu­ba­tors, with sand­bags piled high out­side the en­trance.